On the fifth day of the extensive defamation case against former wife Amber Heard, actor Johnny Depp took the stand to testify himself about the abuse he allegedly suffered at the hands of Heard and how her accusations damaged his public image and life. After several trials between the couple, Depp accused Heard of defamation after she wrote an article in 2018 for the Washington Post on alleged domestic abuse. He filed a 50 million lawsuit to which she answered with a countersuit demanding 100 million.
In the past days, we’ve seen several witnesses of their relationship testify mostly in favor of Depp, including one of the actor’s best friends and neighbor, Heard’s former assistant, Depp’s personal physician, and the couple’s counselor at Fairfax County, Virginia. Today, it was Depp’s turn to take the stand where he started talking about the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother during his childhood and his relationship with his father, and how he dealt with the violence.
Abusive upbringing
Depp was asked about the violence patterns he experienced during his childhood and explained that his mother was extremely violent both physical and psychological with him, his siblings, and his father. He also spoke about how his father would rather punch the wall whenever things got violent with his wife rather than take it on her or his children, claiming he was a good man, though he eventually left the family. However, he also acknowledged that his mother suffered from depression. All this becomes relevant in the case since Depp has previously talked about the abuse and has repeatedly claimed he vowed himself he would never replicate those behaviors.
Johnny Depp also talked about the relationship with his children and how he never even raised his voice in front of them and how he and his former wife Vanessa Paradis, would take any discussion out of the reach of their children wanting to maintain a healthy relationship with his kids and prevent at all cost the experiences he lived himself with his parents.
How his career started and the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise
Depp explained his acting career started by accident. He was a young 20-YO who had just arrived in Los Angeles willing to pursue a career in music. However, things weren’t working that well on that matter and after meeting an agent he decided to give acting a go to pay the bills while he could finally make it into the music scene. Soon he was landing big parts in movies like A Nightmare on Elm Street and the TV show 21 Jump Street. From there they passed on to how he got what would be one of his biggest roles, Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean.
He was asked about how he got the role and who he was approached by Disney to play it. He explained that by that time, his daughter was three years old and that he would only watch animated films and series with her but that there weren’t many products for children with real actors. Disney had approached him with a different project called Hidalgo, which he didn’t really feel was right for him but then, around 2002, they finally sent him the script for Pirates of the Caribbean. He discussed at court how the movie and the character had been an immediate success and how he was happy to keep playing with the character even though the fame he got became overwhelming for him and his family.
They then asked him about his security team and how it had changed after Pirates of the Caribbean. Depp explained that before Pirates, he barely had a security team protecting him, but after the hit of the film he had to increase the team even having some of them looking after his children and taking them to school and home when Vanessa Paradis was working at France.
After discussing who were some of the members of his security team that had worked for him over the years, the court went to recess to keep up with Johnny Depp’s testimony.
Substance abuse
One of the main subjects of Heard’s defense is Johnny Depp’s substance abuse and how it would turn him into a violent person. At court, he was asked about his pattern of substance abuse and how it started. He explained that it all started when he was about five years old and realized his mother would take some “nerve pills” to calm herself. When he was 11 he tried some of her pills “to escape the chaotic nature of what we were living.” Later on, he explained that throughout his career he did abuse substances and alcohol.
Depp also admitted that at some point he became addicted to a medication known as Roxycodone, an opioid he had been prescribed after an injury in 2011 when he was shooting Pirates of the Caribbean: On Strange Tides: “I was bit by the snake, and before you know it that monkey is on your back to stay.” However, after a while, he managed to overcome his addiction and vowed to never take it no matter how much in pain he felt, which included the infamous incident with the bottle when he lost a bit of his finger.
His relationship with Amber Heard
Before the break, Depp’s lawyer asked him about the first impressions of Amber Heard to which he expressed he felt like the luckiest man on Earth. He explained how caring and loving she was at first; how impressed he was about the things they had in common and how cultivated she was, but that it all soon changed and the person he had fallen in love with had drastically changed to someone he didn’t recognize. Before continuing with Amber Heard t
